The Last Tinker: City of Colors is a third-person platforming adventure game from Munich-based Mimimi Productions and Unity Games. We’ve been spending some time with the preview build of the game ahead of its release, read on to find out what we thought of the game so far.
The preview build is fairly short and is taken from the start of the game. The first thing that grabs you is the gorgeous bright cartoony visuals. The game looks lovely and feels fun and full of life.
The game follows protagonist Koru, a young street kid who lives in the slums of Colortown. Your job is to use the power of colour to defeat a force known as the Bleakness in order to save Tinkerworld.
Koru appears to be a mix of boy and monkey and through his movement reminds us of Monkey from Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. He can be controlled via mouse and keyboard or game controller and both methods work well.
Koru moves with ease and as well as standard walking and sprinting you can also press a free-run button to allow him to traverse obstacles with ease. Doing so is a bit like Assassin’s Creed where you just need to push in the general direction and the game does the rest. This gets rid of tricky platforming and makes things much easier for younger players too.
Koru is accompanied by his friend Tap, a cute floating goat-like creature. Tap helps teach you the basics and is always on-hand to help you out. Should you get lost a quick ‘tap’ of a button summons Tap to show you the way to your next objective.
In addition to his free-running skills Koru is also a skilled fighter. He’s able to take on groups of foes at a time. Hitting the attack button allows him to perform combos and he also has a neat dodge-roll that can be combined with an attack to counter enemies. His fighting skills also allow him to break open the many crates and barrels littered around the environment to obtain life gems and crystals.
Once you’ve mastered the basics Koru is sent to enter a race. When he gets there he discovers that he needs a large number of crystals to pay his registration fee. This sends him off on a couple of quests – one to train his fighting skills and another to help a farmer.
Getting around is done via grind rails which is as simple as running up to them and then watching Koru slide along them. At the fighting area you learn how to perform combo moves, dodge-rolls and attack multiple opponents before taking to the ring to put what you’ve learnt into practice.
When you visit the farmer to offer your help he tasks you with activating mushroom patches. This is done with the help of a giant mushroom creature called Biggs. By whistling at him you can get him to come to you in order to activate each mushroom patch. At times you need to activate switches and even shrink him down to enable him to access certain areas. These are simple puzzles but surely just a taste of what is to come in the full game.
The preview build was only a brief taste of what is to come in The Last Tinker: City of Colors. However it has left us thoroughly impressed and eager to play the full game. It looks to be a very polished title with solid mechanics and wonderful art direction. The Last Tinker: City of Colors is due for release for PC, Mac and Linux via Steam on the 12th May 2014.
EF will be bringing you a full review of the game later this week.
